Consumers have in recent times been desirous of eating wholesome and nutritious snack foods. Milk-containing puddings have long been considered nutritious and wholesome foods. Consumers are, however, requiring that the foods they eat, particularly snack food and dessert items, be essentially ready-to-eat.
Consumers are also desirous of reducing their calorie intake as well as their intake of refined sugars. Aspartame-sweetened products, wherein aspartame (i.e., L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester), replace all or a major part of sugars, such as sucrose, fructose and dextrose, have become quite popular in recent years. Unfortunately, aspartame is not heat stable at normal pudding pH's of about 6.7 and may when subjected to high heat for even a short period of time decompose or break down into non-sweet compounds This has presented a problem for the use of aspartame in foodstuffs which are heat-treated, such as products which must be pasteurized and/or sterilized.
Recently, single-service portions of refrigerated, aseptically-packaged, sugar-sweetened pudding products have entered the market. Formulations and processes for producing such products are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,075 to Joseph et al., which patent is hereby incorporated by reference. As used herein and as recognized in the trade, aseptically-packaged refers to products which are fully aseptic and, thus, are microbiologically shelf-stable for an indefinite period as well as products which have been pasteurized with the intent of being commercially sterile but are marketed as refrigerated products.